Animation

Over almost two years and over eighty episodes on the air, Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans Go has dropped its characters into a wide variety of different situations. They might go to the future, meet alternate versions of themselves, or die of old age. There are even songs.

Some critics have accused the show of being too silly, so in the episode debuting today, “Let’s Get Serious,” the Titans meet some of these critics in the form of Young Justice, the teen superhero team from their own, departed, animated show --- and they’re definitely not pleased with what they see. To battle their critics, the Titans grimace really hard until they too become incredibly serious, muscled, gritty one-liner-spouting versions of themselves.

We spoke to series producer Michael Jelenic about the crossover, bouncing criticisms back at detractors and pushing the show into even wider, weirder directions.

DuckTales is coming back with even more tales of daring do, bad and good luck tales as Disney XD announced that they're bringing back the 80s cartoon with a new animated series set to launch in 2017. Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewey and Louie will all be return and they just might solve a mystery. Or rewrite history!

The breakout success of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy all-but assured that the revitalized franchise would next appear in animated form, something Disney XD confirmed at New York Comic-Con. Now, our future Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon and Groot have arrived, recruiting Boy Meets World alum Will Friedle and more!

It started as just a line of action figures with an almost infuriatingly off-model bat-symbol, and last week, we told you about the upcoming animated movie based on the toys in which Batman and his pals fight a bunch of animal-themed villains with the help of a robot panther that turns into a motorcycle. I honestly didn't think it could get any stranger than that, but this week at the New York Toy Fair, they went a whole lot further when Mattel introduced plans for this year's line of toys, which include Batman riding CybeRex, a robotic tyrannosaurus that eats criminals.

If you're like me and you make a point of checking for new Batman toys every time you're in a store with a toy aisle, then you may already be familiar with Batman Unlimited. The line's been kicking around for a few years, but now it seems like DC is releasing a new direct-to-video feature that ties in.

On the one hand, I'm not a big fan of the designs that they're going with for the movie -- like the figures, they boast a version of the bat-symbol that seems slightly off-model and give Batman's cowl a weird chinstrap that looks like a blue soul patch. On the other hand, this is a movie that has Batman riding around on a robot panther that turns into a motorcycle, and that's basically amazing. Give it a watch for yourself.

Those of you who spend all your time watching superhero cartoons made for tiny babies (and by that I mean me) may have noticed that there was a half-hour special late last year called LEGO Justice League: Batman Beleagured. If you missed it, it was a very blocky origin story for how Batman joined the Justice League, and it was actually pretty great -- especially the twist ending.

Now, it seems that they're following it up with a second special, and this time, it's about Bizarro arriving in Metropolis and doing... well, exactly what Bizarro does every time he shows up, which is screw things up on a catastrophic level and terrify the populace. And apparently, that's just the tip of a mixed-up iceberg that's going to involve an entire Bizarro League.

As regular readers will no doubt be aware, ComicsAlliance's most anticipated movie of 2015/ever is the upcoming live-action adaptation of the greatest glam-rock cartoon of all time, Jem and the Holograms. That said, there are a lot of rumors floating around about changes made in the transition from the small screen to the big screen. Some of them are interesting (possibly recasting Eric Raymond as a woman), some of them are worrisome (making an entire Jem movie without the Misfits), but they're all pointing at a Jem that's pretty different from the one we're used to. We just weren't quite expecting it to be this different.

As you can see from the video above, it seems like the live-action Jem has recast its stars as men who sing in Italian. So... that's unexpected.

Q: What's up with Rudolph's Shiny New Year? Is it so perfect there are no other New Years specials? -- @otherhoffman

A: I've talked about my pure, unconditional love for the various Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas specials in past columns, but let me tell you, "what's up with Rudolph's Shiny New Year" is a question I have asked myself on many occasions. I'm not sure if I'd call it perfect, but even stacked up against Santa Claus being raised by a lioness and fighting war against the goblins and an Ani-Magic redhead trying to seduce the Lord of All Vampires, it is downright bizarre.

Q: Why does everyone hate the "Christmas with the Joker" episode of Batman: The Animated Series? -- @tekende

A: You know, I'm not sure everyone does hate "Christmas with the Joker." I certainly don't, but then again, I can't really say that I like it a whole lot either. It's definitely one of those episodes that pops into mind whenever I start thinking of the worst episodes of the series, although it misses out on being the actual worst by a long shot. But that said, I don't quite know the reason why.

Q: What '80s or '90s cartoon do you think has the single best Christmas episode? -- @UncannyJay

A: Given the things I tend to write about in this column, it pretty much goes without saying that I absolutely love cartoon Christmas specials. I even wrote about a few of my favorites last year for ComicsAlliance, including the truly bizarre Christmas Comes to Pac-Land, in which a visit from Santa Claus makes it abundantly clear that Pac-Man's living nightmare of eating dots and being menaced by the vengeful spirits of the damned occurs on some kind of demi-plane that exists outside of the sight of God. That one has to be in my top three.

But beyond those three, there's definitely one Christmas episode in particular that I absolutely love: G.I. Joe's "Cobra Claws Are Coming To Town!"

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